An hour or so after the final whistle, Steve Bruce's mobile phone rang. "Sir Bobby," exclaimed Wigan Athletic's manager, suddenly beaming. "I'll be there in five minutes and we'll have that cup of tea." With Sir Bobby Robson having recently made it plain he would like to see Bruce occupying his old office at St James' Park, a transcript of their conversation would make intriguing reading.

"I'll have to buy Sir Bobby a drink for saying I should be made manager here," explained the boyhood Newcastle fan who was dubbed a "daft prick" by his son, Alex, when he turned the job down in 2004. "It's a very nice compliment. He knows I'm a Geordie, he knows I'm one of them but, at the moment, I'm very happy with what I'm doing. We'll see what happens - maybe one day."

It seems unlikely that whoever finally buys Newcastle from Mike Ashley will restrict themselves to Geordie managerial candidates but, if they do, Bruce, rather than the novice Alan Shearer, should surely be first choice.

He is building a promising team at Wigan and would have departed Tyneside with three points had Emerson Boyce not been wrongly sent off early in the second half. Equally importantly, Bruce boasts the sort of grounded, humour-tinged temperament and lack of preciousness essential for managers working amid the often hysterically hyperbolic atmosphere of north-east football.

Joe Kinnear is already feeling the strain and clearly did not enjoy having his decision to start Michael Owen on the bench subjected to minute analysis. "Michael's a precious commodity, he needs to be brought back [from a groin injury] gently," insisted Newcastle's interim manager. "I could have taken the easy option and brought him back against Aston Villa two weeks ago. But if Michael had broken down and we'd lost, you lot would have had a field day."

Rather more controversially, Kinnear disagrees with his predecessor Kevin Keegan's belief that Owen is best deployed deep "in the hole" as a conduit between midfield and attack. "He's an out-and-out striker," he stressed. "Michael needs to be in the box." Maybe so, but a woefully uninventive Newcastle certainly missed a creator capable of linking play here and seemed destined to defeat until Owen's arrival, albeit in Kinnear's preferred outright poaching role, transformed their fortunes.

Trailing to a third-minute 25-yard lob struck with the outside of Ryan Taylor's right boot, they had been abject against opponents lacking the injured strike pairing of Amr Zaki and Emile Heskey. Indeed even Boyce's ludicrous departure in the wake of a second yellow card collected for a clean, ball-winning tackle on Shola Ameobi failed to hand Newcastle the initiative.

Instead Lee Cattermole - whose clattering early challenge eliminated Joey Barton from the fray with a potentially serious knee injury - continued to run the game from central midfield and Henri Camara went close to making it 2-0 when he outstripped Fabricio Coloccini before seeing his shot rebound off the inside of a post.

It took Owen's introduction to alter the power balance. Suddenly the previously imperious Titus Bramble - superb on this return to the scene of so many gaffes - looked a little nervous and, when Chris Kirkland could only parry an Ameobi shot, the erstwhile England striker pounced on the rebound.

As Obafemi Martins lashed a subsequent angled shot past Kirkland, Newcastle appeared poised for the luckiest of victories, but Bramble had other ideas and gleefully headed Daniel de Ridder's late corner beyond Shay Given.

And so, with a point to show, Bruce was off to pay his respects to Sir Bobby. "See you again in January when you get the job here," joked a reporter as Wigan's manager strode towards the door. Bruce merely smiled. He knows all too well that many a true word has been said in jest.

Man of the match Lee Cattermole (Wigan Athletic)

'Referee let me down'

The Respect campaign was again left under strain after the Wigan manager, Steve Bruce, was left frustrated by the referee Andre Marriner's decision to show Emerson Boyce a second yellow card for his challenge on Newcastle's Shola Ameobi. 'I don't want to criticise referees but I've been let down,' he said. 'Emerson's was a really, really good tackle, he got the whole of the ball. When referees are issuing cards they have to be right. It's about showing players respect, giving them the benefit of the doubt.'